Word 2010: can't load web page from valid link

1. Ctrl+Click the link. I get "Unable to open <url>. Cannot locate the Internet server or proxy server.

2. Right click, copy the link.

3. Paste into a browser's URL field and press enter. The page loads normally.

What is Word doing???

The only odd thing about the URL is that it starts with an IP address rather than a domain name. Here and there on the Web I've found posts by other people who have encountered this problem with an IP address in a URL, but I haven't found any answers.